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Special Seminar by Prof Hideaki Itoh

Prof. Hideaki Itoh from the RESCWE Centre of Nagoya University visited the Lodge recently and gave a seminar on "Preparation of New Super Hard Materials by High Pressure Sintering and Techniques (CUD)".

Prof Itoh is Professor at the Research Centre for Advanced Waste and Emission Management (RESCWE) at Nagoya University. He obtained his BSc in Industrial Chemistry at Nagoya Unstitute of Technology and his Master and PhD degrees in Engineering at Nagoya University.

He initially worked on Chemical Vapour Deposition of Land materials such as transition metal carbide, nitrides, brides and diamond. From 1981 to 1982, he was a research scientist in the Ceramic Processing Research Laboratory of MIT. He was then promoted to Associate Professor at the Synthetic Crystal Research Laboratory of Nagoya University where he extended his research to encompass high pressure sintering of super-hard materials. In 1999, he was promoted to Full Professor at RESCWE and since then he has been engaged in the analysis and assessment of waste difficult to process (DTP) and its treatment for recycling and efficient use.

He is currently the President of the Japanese Society of Waste Management Experts, which has 4,000 members all over Japan.

Prof Itoh first referred to the preparation of diamond coating for cutting tools. In this case, a very high adherence is necessary. The lecturer discussed how to prepare the specimens using CVD methods. Prof. Itoh illustrated his lecture with many experimental results. He demonstrated that using his techniques he could obtain an excellent adhesive between the diamond field and the silicon nitride sub structure. The introduction of a diamond like carbide intermediate layer was found to enhance the adhesion considerably.

Prof Itoh also referred to the preparation of super-hard materials based on Boron and subjected to heat treatment as well as very high pressure sintering, to produce a composite. The pressure required is in the order of 4 to 5 GPa and 1500 to 2,500 degrees C.